


Choices

by Gairid



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Angst, Community: vc_media, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-27
Updated: 2010-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-08 08:36:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gairid/pseuds/Gairid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis and Lestat square off after Lestat makes David a vampire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Becky Durden](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Becky+Durden).



> This fic came about after I read Becky Durden's's drabble on VC_Media's Drabble Dimanche on 3/21/10. Her drabble spawned a bit of a plotbunny and this is the result.

****

### Choices

###  _The brisk knock at the door told him that it was not Lestat. His maker never had such manners. _

Somehow he knew that he was opening the door to new calamity, change wrought in his life by Lestat. He almost turned and fled, but he was Louis and he never shrank from his demons.

The Body Thief or someone stood in that doorway, in the body he had almost crushed beneath his foot. A fledgling. Lestat's. He should have destroyed the body. How handsome the fledgling was, strong and sure of himself, reflecting what Louis knew he could never be.

Reflection by Becky Durden

*****

"Rio was splendid. Why would you just up and leave like that?"

Which acidic reply could I possibly give that would penetrate the obtuseness he continued to display? In truth I can't even say why I ever agreed to accompany he and David there in the first place; as it was I could bear David's presence only because I had been grateful that he had helped Lestat when I had refused to, a betrayal that Lestat would no doubt lament upon for years.

Once in Brazil, it had been even worse than I thought it would be. David's attempts at forging some sort of bridge between us and Lestat's increasingly onerous Hail-and-Well-Met jocularity had driven me to distraction and I decided I no longer cared to endure it. Let him have his time with his wondrous fledgling; I wanted no part of it.

"Do you think me made of stone?" I said finally.

"I don't know what you're talking about." he snapped. "You always answer a question with a question. It's infuriating."

He looked at me rather sharply and I realized suddenly that my hands were clenched tightly enough to have pierced bleeding half-moons in my palms. Lestat knew it—of course he did. He could smell it.

"I beg your pardon." I said executing a sweepingly mocking bow. "How thoughtless of me to infuriate you in such a manner." I licked the blood from my palms. The tiny wounds were already gone.

He narrowed his eyes. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Louis."

"Of course you would say that. Let me ask _you_ a question. Did it suit _you_ that we had, at long last, come together in something approaching mutual respect and a great deal of love? And that after so many long years, so many misunderstandings and the ghastly mistake that we made, the two of us, with Claudia, we had managed some form of peace? Did that suit you? I might add here that it was you that came back to me. You do remember _that_, don't you?"

"Of course I remember it. I remember all of it." His voice was low with leashed anger.

"Oh, yes. How you love your precious anger." I said, mimicking words like those he had said to me so long ago. "You hold it close, you hoard it like a miser hoards his gold."

"And have I no reasons for this anger?" Lestat asked, his tone silky and dangerous.

"Of course you have reasons for it. There are no words for the things that have been done to you, and not enough tears for what we have done together and apart. Does it suit you, then to hold this bitterness close? Sarcasm does not suit me, you say. Do you think it suited me to find that you had flown from me without a word, a good-bye or even a casual 'Fuck you, Louis' only to offer yourself up to the sun in what you tried to believe would be your eradication from the world?"

His face went still but I saw the shock register with a twitch of his eyelid, a subtle movement of his lips tightening across his teeth.

"Did you further think it would suit me that you would go to David in your agony? That you would come to me afterward with your mad scheme of becoming mortal again for some little while? Tell me Lestat how I betrayed you yet again by refusing to bring you back into this darkness. Tell me how it should suit me that you have made yet another fledgeling to bolster you in those ways that I, apparently, cannot. Tell me. Tell me!"

Predictably, he came at me but I managed somehow to sidestep and avoid the brunt of his blow. I whirled and planted my hands against his chest, shoving with all my strength. He stumbled but did not lose his balance and then he barked a laugh at me.

"How unlike you to judge my motives and my reasons, Louis." he jeered. "I remember how contrite you were after reading my history."

"The history that you could easily have related to me if you had ever thought to place an ounce of trust in what I felt for you." I caught a ragged breath. "What I feel for you still." I looked away from him; his eyes had always been my weakness. He spoke through them with such eloquence.

This seemed to give him pause and I thought for just a moment that building storm might dissipate. Part of me wearies of the constant chafing, the clashing of wills, yet I would be dishonest if I did not admit to a fierce satisfaction in standing up to him and if you asked him when he was in the right mood, I know that he would admit to the same thing. We are no longer human, yet because we were indeed once human these human things linger and color us for all time, even those who have reached such great ages.

"So." he said coolly, "I expect you will once again move out and dig into some loathsome, shabby hole?"

"And why would I leave my own home?" I challenged. "I am not playing this game again. If you wish to continue your dalliance, you may do it elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?" he laughed. "Ah. So you are jealous! Admit it, Louis. You can't stand that I may wish to have contact with others. Does it not occur to you that not everyone has your solitary nature?"

"Jealous? That's rich coming from you, of all people. When have I ever stood in your way? I could as easily stop a hurricane as I could stop you from doing anything that you have a mind to do; nor would I try. Yet, should I even cast an eye toward an interesting mortal with whom I might converse your hackles rise. Don't speak to me of jealousy."

He fetched a mighty sigh, as though he could not believe the temerity of my words.

"David..."

I cut him off furiously. "_David_ is not my affair. You may have your reasons for doing what you did, but really, Lestat. Why would you think I would wish to be enmeshed in yet another of your great loves? I have no wish to be regaled with your rhapsodies regarding David or anyone else any more than you would wish such a thing from me, as unlikely as it might be. Do you understand that I must shield myself from these flights of yours? Do what you will but if you have any feeling for me at all, you must understand that I am unable to rejoice in yet another of your whims."

His face crumpled for a moment and I saw there the vulnerability that has always been my sorrow as well as my curse. "You think I did this to hurt you?" he said with bewildered incredulity.

I fetched a sigh of my own. "No. You are a thoughtless, vain creature to be sure. No one knows this better than I, _oui_? I don't think you do anything against _me_ with malice, but that does not mean that it hurts me any less. To ask me to accept him...to accept David...I cannot. You may think I am not a threat to him, my love, having bestowed upon him all that you are now, but you of all creatures will know it is unwise to underestimate me. Leave me be on this point, Lestat."

"I take that to mean you would not welcome his presence here?" he asked, his tone flat.

"How astute." I said distantly. "Would it be so much to ask after all this time and all we have been to one another that you offer me the respect that when you are ready to come back to me for a week or a month or a decade to realize that perhaps I do not want to hear every nuance of how wonderful that love was and how you miss that person so very much? And for God's sake, respect me enough to at least warn me if you are thinking on bringing yet another mortal into this life."

He was bristling--I could see it. His body was as taut as a bowstring, his temper ready to flare at the next thing I might say. I defused this by remaining silent and, little by little, the tension drained from him as he digested what I 'd said.

"Yes, Louis. Fine. I will do as you ask and afford you the warnings that seem to mean so much to you, whether or not they mean anything at all between the two of us. I wonder, though, if it will mean anything to you that I will choose those that I want around me and that it does not all revolve around you?"

His voice was chilly but his eyes...his eyes were pleading.

I did not have it in me to give in and allow him the wherewithal to tear me into even more minute pieces. I offered him a choice just as once upon a time he had offered me a choice. I chose him and if he could not, in turn, choose me, I was not going to make it easy for him.

  
**FIN**  



End file.
